Due to the ongoing changes of living conditions, there is a tendency for a lack of proper eating habits of today's Japanese people. Particularly serious problems lie in an increase in skipping meals, eating alone, over-consumption of energy caused by an excessive reliance on processed foods, and nutrient imbalance such as consumption shortages of dietary fiber and minerals. Such nutrient imbalance is one of the risk factors for life-style related diseases, and its adjustment is crucial to a healthy life. Sufficient consumption of vegetables and fruits proved to be useful for the correction of an imbalance in the intake of nutrients. In Japan, the targeted level of vegetable consumption is at least 350 g under the National Health Promotion for the 21st Century (“Health Japan 21”) (reference value: 292 g; the 1997 National Nutrition Survey). In the United States, meanwhile, it is recommended to take vegetables of 5 or more different types and fruits of three or more different types a day, with the aim of preventing life-style related diseases (“5+3 Campaign”). With such a background in view, it is deemed highly meaningful to make vegetables readily ingestible, in view of the nationwide promotion of a healthy life.
Processing vegetables into juice is an effective means, given its ability to make vegetables readily ingestible. A number of vegetable juices are on the market these days. Nevertheless, it is necessary for such vegetable juices to be subjected to a heat sterilization treatment so that the microbiological stability thereof could be maintained. However, the vegetable juices subjected to such a treatment tend to be shied away by consumers due to their cooked odor, despite their benefit of being recognized for a healthy life. Further, vegetable juices containing dietary fibers do not bring a good feeling for the throat when swallowed, so it is well known to finely chop vegetables into very small pieces and then to remove dietary fibers by microfiltration or the like, thereby improving the smooth feeling for the throat and making it easy to drink as possible (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2003-135038